The current method for launching rockets, from a stationary position on a fixed launch pad resting on the ground, is highly inefficient, and requires large, bulky, and very expensive rockets to lift a payload into orbit. A typical large rocket usually can lift, into orbit, a total payload that weights only about 1 to 3% of the total weight of the fully-loaded rocket. As an example, Saturn V rockets, used to launch the Apollo missions to the moon, weighed roughly 6.2 million pounds when loaded, but they could lift only 285,000 pounds into orbit, and could deliver only 107,000 lb to the moon.
In addition, the basic design of rockets places a large and tall column of very heavy material, on top of a small horizontal cross-section. Using the Saturn V again as an example, it was more than 360 feet tall, but its diameter was only 33 feet. This type of very tall column requires very strong and heavy structural members, especially near the bottom of the column, to prevent structural failures.
The heavy stresses and pressures that are imposed on tall rockets become even greater, during the accelerations that are generated during a launch. These stresses and strains render rockets more susceptible to failure, and demands very careful maintenance and fairly extensive replacement of parts, between every launch. It is no coincidence that both of the space shuttles that have been lost to date (the Challenger, which exploded during liftoff in 1986, and the Columbia, which disintegrated during reentry in 2003 due to damage it suffered during liftoff) were lost due to failures that occurred during liftoff. An analysis of all rocket losses and failures that have occurred, during the entire U.S. space program, very likely would reveal that well over 90% of all rocket failures occur during liftoff.
The unavoidable limitations, risks, and shortcomings of the conventional methods of launching rockets are well-known to aerospace engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and any person or company with a serious level of interest in space flight. Therefore, the shortcomings of the current methods for launching rockets will not be described in further detail herein, except in direct comparison to the substantially different approach of the lifting and launching system disclosed herein.
The remainder of this Background section will briefly summarize a completely different type of rocket-lifting system, which is designed to lift rockets to high altitudes, in a horizontal position, and get them flying forward at hundreds of miles per hour, before the rocket engines are ignited. This Background section will then point out a number of features and aspects of this system that offer advantages over conventional rocket launching systems. Each such feature must be evaluated, not in isolation, but by comparing it to the current system of launching rockets.
Briefly, the rocket lifting and launching system disclosed herein is illustrated in FIG. 1, and can be regarded as comprising four main subassemblies, or layers. At the very top of the complete system 10 is an array of large helium-filled vessels, shown as dirigibles 100 in FIG. 1, with lengths that preferably should be in a range of about 300 to 1000 feet, to allow them to provide hundreds or even thousands of tons of lifting capacity. Beneath the dirigibles 100 is a tank-holding unit 200, which can also be referred to by terms such as “lifting barge”. It will hold high-pressure tanks and pumps, so that the dirigibles can be deflated by pumping the helium into the tanks, after the system has reached a high altitude and the rocket is almost ready to be released. Beneath the tank-holding unit 200 is a device referred to herein as “winged platform” 300. It will have multiple wings, each of which will be provided with multiple engines of a type used in conventional airplanes, having oversized propellers. The fourth subassembly is rocket 400, which is suspended horizontally beneath the winged platform 300.
The wings on the “winged platform” 300 will be rotatable, in a manner comparable to Osprey airplanes as used by the U.S. military, or Harrier jets as used by the British military. During liftoff, these wings will be rotated into a vertical position, as shown in FIG. 1, so that the propellers will provide maximum vertical lift, comparable to helicopters. After the system reaches a desired altitude, the wings will be rotated partially forward, as shown in FIG. 2, to begin providing horizontal propulsion and forward flight. As the system picks up speed, the dirigibles will be deflated, to reduce their drag. When the rotation of the wings and the deflation of the dirigibles reach a suitable combination, the winged platform 300 will be released and dropped by the tank holder 200 and dirigibles 100. After this release, the platform 300 and rocket 400 will be able to reach a flying speed of several hundred miles per hour, still without burning any rocket fuel. When the system has been checked out and is ready, the rocket engines will be ignited, presumably for an initial low-power burn that will allow confirmation that all systems are functioning properly. If everything is working properly, the rocket 400 will be released by the platform 300, and when the rocket has flown a safe distance from the platform, the rocket engines will be increased to full power.
Accordingly, this system can allow rockets (including large and heavy rockets) to be lifted to at least 10,000 meters (roughly 30,000 feet) or higher, and then given a flying speed of hundreds of miles per hour, before any rocket fuel must be burned to carry the rocket and its payload into orbit.
Once the arrangement and operation of this multi-part lifting and launching system is understood, a number of advantages, compared to conventional rocket launching devices and methods, will begin to become clear, including the following.
First, this approach will allow a rocket having a fixed size (such as an already-existing, well-known class of rocket that has an extensive record of successful use and experience) to carry a substantially larger and heavier payload into space, compared to a rocket of the same size when launched from a stationery position, sitting on the ground.
In a second related advantage, this system will allow much more efficient launches, and more efficient use of rocket fuel. While conventional rockets can boost only about 1 to 3 percent of their total weight into orbit as a payload, the lifting system disclosed herein is likely to at least triple or quadruple that efficiency level, to levels of greater than 10 percent.
Third, this approach can provide a rocket launching system that can be used much more frequently, and with less refurbishing and lower expense, than the space shuttle or any other currently known system. Most of the components of the lifting system will be straightforward adaptations of well-known types of dirigibles and large cargo airplanes. This will allow simple and rapid refurbishing between missions, consisting mainly of refueling.
Fourth, by providing a system that suspends a rocket horizontally while it is being lifted, this system will distribute the weight of the rocket over a fairly long linear span, rather than stacking a huge and tall column of heavy material on top of a small area, as occurs in conventional rocket launches. In this manner, this new lifting system can greatly reduce the intensity and severity of pressures and stresses that are imposed on the lower levels of a rocket. By reducing the intensity of the pressures and stresses generated during liftoff, this can make launches safer and more controllable, as well as less prone to vibrations and other undesired motions. Accordingly, it can allow the frame and the other components that are used to enclose and support the tanks, engines, piping, and other internal parts of the rocket, to be made of lighter, more efficient, less expensive materials.
Fifth, this type of slow-lifting system can be monitored and extensively controlled, during each and all of the sequential steps of a lifting and launching operation. This type of monitoring and responsive controlling can be carried out by pilots who fly on board the system, while it rises slowly to the desired altitude; alternately, it can be carried out by completely unmanned remote controls, using telemetry. This will allow safer operations, and if a major malfunction arises, it will offer various ways, not available in conventional rocket launches, to terminate or abort a launch, and bring the entire system (or some portion of it) back down, in a controlled descent, so it can be landed safely (such as on or near a large recovery vessel, floating in the ocean).
And finally, because of several aspects of how this system is designed, and how it will function, this new and different approach to launching rockets may be able to help create and provide an important step forward, to help the nations, cultures, and religions of the world begin working together much more cooperatively toward exploring and colonizing the moon, then Mars, and eventually other planets.
A patent application is not the proper forum for an inventor to engage in rhetoric or social commentary; however, readers are asked and urged to at least consider the visual, social, and international implications of this type of lifting and launching system, compared to conventional rocket launchings. Because of historical and funding factors, rockets and missiles were developed as highly dangerous and destructive weapons. Everything about them was designed to provide maximum thrust, force, speed, and destructive power. Even in times of peace, they're closely tied to military uses, and are widely regarded as generally threatening, by anyone who does not live in the nation that launched a new type of rocket (as an example, even when they do not carry outright weaponry into space, they quite often carry spy satellites, military hardware, or other payloads that are designed to advance the interests of the launching nation, rather than the general interests of all humanity). Even if developed for uses that are ostensibly peaceful, they can be quickly modified to deliver extremely destructive “warheads”.
If anyone in the U.S. does not quickly recognize the threatening implications of how rockets and missiles are designed and launched today, he or she should simply ponder the fears, concerns, and threats that are felt, when nations that are openly hostile to America (and/or to their neighbors) take active and aggressive steps to obtain and test ever-larger rockets. No one feels reassured when some country that is not a safe and reliable ally decides to create and test bigger, larger, and faster rockets.
By contrast, the systems disclosed herein are not suited at all for aggressive or threatening use. Since they will rise very slowly, in ways that cannot be hidden from surveillance, they would offer fat, slow, easy targets to defensive weaponry, if a neighboring country or continent feels threatened.
Instead, these lifting and launching systems are specifically and intentionally designed to lift large, bulky, heavy loads, of the type that will be necessary to build permanent manned colonies on the moon, Mars, and elsewhere.
Since the suitable and natural focus, goal, and image of slow-lifting rocket launchers can and should be for entirely peaceful and humanitarian purposes (such as for building permanent colonies on the moon or Mars), these systems offer a remarkable and potentially powerful opportunity for the nations, cultures, and religions of the world to (i) adopt safeguards against their use for aggressive or threatening purposes, and (ii) begin developing ways for the nations, cultures, and religions of the world, to cooperate with each other, while designing and then building peaceful, cooperative, coexisting colonies on the moon or Mars.
As just one example, if the leaders of the great religions of the world were to begin a process of drafting agreements and understandings that among themselves, to help establish a framework for different religions and their followers to coexist and cooperate peacefully, while building a collection of colonies on the moon in which faith and belief would be obliged to find ways to coexist with science and technology, that type of effort may be able to do a great deal of good, not just in the lunar colonies that would result, but here on earth as well.
In addition, it should be recognized that the launching systems of this invention can be adapted to be launched from a much wider range of locations, on earth, than can be achieved by conventional rocket launches. In general, the various components of this system can be flown or otherwise transported to nearly any hospitable location in the world, and then launched from that location without requiring an onland facility that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct and operate. Accordingly, this type of relatively mobile system could be used to enable any cooperating country to actually conduct and witness the launching of a major rocket, with an important payload, and with a manned crew if desired.
A patent application is not the proper forum for an extended discussion of issues that go beyond the machinery and technology disclosed therein. Nevertheless, anyone who seriously ponders this invention, and who ponders what it might do to help accelerate and enable the actual construction of permanent colonies on the moon and Mars, should realize that the planning and designing of permanent colonies in space will raise important and unavoidable questions relating to faith, religions, and international relations. The Applicant herein has done what he can, as a scientist/engineer who is also an attorney and a patent attorney (and with help from a number of helpful and trusted advisors having a range of different backgrounds), to try to begin developing and offering a framework for analysis and constructive discussion of such issues. That framework has been posted on an Internet website, www.tetraheed.net, in a set of web pages and downloadable essays.
As a brief introduction and summary, in one set of web pages, the Applicant points out how a complex three-dimensional object can look quite different, from different perspectives. As one example, the top, front, and side views of a building often look quite different from each other; and yet, all three of those “orthogonal” views can be accurate and helpful, in helping someone figure out what the building actually looks like. Accordingly, one of the goals of education should be to teach people how to view and evaluate anything complex from at least three substantially different viewpoints, and then construct their own mental image and understanding of that item, in ways that accurately and honestly incorporate elements from all three of perspectives. This concept and approach is embodied in the name “Tetraheed”, which in turn arose from the name “tetrahedron”, which is the most stable three-dimensional building block found in nature.
Additional web pages (with downloadable essays) address a number of conflicts between science and religion, focusing on evolution as one example of an ongoing battle between them. The Applicant proposes a middle ground, which accepts both science and religion (while posing serious unresolved questions for each), in a manner comparable to accepting that men and women must find ways to get along and work together despite their differences, and which attempts to promote a process of wrestling usefully and constructively with the conflicts that will arise, when leaders begin to seriously ask how competing and often conflicting (and even warring) national and religious interests should be handled, in newly-formed colonies that will be built in space.
The viewpoints expressed in those web pages and essays are not incorporated herein, and they stand independently of this invention, which rests on scientific, engineering, and technical factors and insights. Nevertheless, anyone who is interested in the social, religious, and other non-technical aspects of colonizing space is requested to browse the Tetraheed website and at least consider the comments therein.
Finally, it also should be noted that the same Applicant herein has filed a utility patent application on another set of machines that can help enable and accelerate the actual construction of permanent inhabited colonies, on the moon and eventually Mars. Because of the overlap of that invention with this invention, the contents of that second application are incorporated herein by reference, as though fully set forth herein.
Very briefly, that separate invention relates to the staged and sequential construction and testing of prototype machines, each of which will be able to carry out one specific and limited type of operation on the moon, using the powdery mineral dust (called “regolith”) that covers the surface of the moon. The first set of machines will crawl (on tractor treads or similar devices) across the surface of the moon, scooping up the powdery regolith, and smelting it into ingots of processed metal. These machines would start at an initial location, and crawl across the lunar surface, most likely in a generally spiral pattern, scooping up the dust and depositing a series of smelted ingots along their trails.
A second set of machines would follow in those trails, and would scoop up the ingots, and process them into plates or pipes.
A third set of machines would do similar operations, to create photovoltaic wafers, ribbons, or other devices that will generate voltage, when hit by sunlight.
A fourth set of machines would do similar operations to create battery cores, for storing electricity.
By using this approach, a set of unmanned machines that would not risk any human lives can be designed, and tested in prototype form. If launched and used, these machines can begin creating stockpiles of extremely useful building materials on the moon, in selected locations (such as at the lunar north or south pole, where constant sunlight and line-of-sight contact with earth are always available). After some number of months or years, when sufficient stockpiles of those semi-processed building materials are available, a human crew (supported by various machines) could be sent to assemble those materials into buildings which, when assembled, would allow the work crews to live in them for weeks, months, or even indefinitely.
In addition, by creating competitions in which teams of science and engineering students at universities will design and build such prototype machines (preferably with support and teamwork from aerospace, automotive, and other companies that would like to build the actual machines), the design and the competitive testing of the prototypes could be done with maximum creativity and minimal costs.
As mentioned above, these types of machines are described in more detail in a utility patent application that is being filed simultaneously with this application (designated as utility application Ser. No. 10/692,058). The contents of that application are posted on the Internet, at www.tetraheed.net, and can be downloaded by anyone at no cost.
Accordingly, one object of this invention is to disclose a rocket lifting and launching system that uses a combination of (i) helium-filled lifting craft, and (ii) conventional propeller or jet engines, mounted on rotatable wings, to lift a rocket into the upper atmosphere, before the rocket's engines are ignited and the rocket is launched into space.
Another object of this invention is to disclose a rocket lifting and launching system that uses a combination of helium-filled lifting craft, and conventional propeller or jet engines mounted on rotatable wings, to provide a loaded rocket with substantial flying speed before the rocket's engines are ignited and the rocket is launched.
Another object of this invention is to disclose a rocket launching system that can slowly and gently lift a rocket into the upper atmosphere, in a manner that can be continuously monitored and controlled, by onboard pilots or by telemetry and remote controls, allowing the rocket engines to be ignited only after the rocket reaches a high altitude with substantial flying speed.
Another object of this invention is to disclose a rocket launching system that can improve the efficiency of rocket launches, to allow a rocket of a given size to lift a larger and/or heavier payload into orbit, and to allow a fully-loaded rocket (including payload) to place 10% or more of its total loaded weight into orbit, as a useful payload.
Another object of this invention is to disclose a rocket launching system that comprises several major lifting components that use well-known technology developed for subsonic aircraft, and which can be controllably descended and landed safely after launching a rocket, and which can be reused again very rapidly after refueling, in a manner comparable to conventional airplanes.
Another object of this invention is to disclose a rocket lifting and launching system that lifts rockets to a high altitude while they are suspended horizontally by a support system that distributes their weight over their entire length, thereby avoiding the high stresses and pressures that are generated within rockets that must stand and be launched in tall vertical columns.
Another object of this invention is to disclose a rocket lifting and launching system that is less violent, less warlike, and less potentially threatening and destructive than conventional rocket and missile systems, as a step toward improving international cooperation in designing and constructing permanent colonies on the moon, Mars, and elsewhere.
These and other objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent through the following summary, drawings, and description.